Open Thread for Personal Stuff: Late July 2015 Kitten Hug Edition

Hi everyone! I follow this blog since a while, but I´m new to the comments so please bare with me!
All of you people are so brave and I wish you all the best =)
So I was afraid of having gotten HIV from the man who raped me and it took me two years to finally get the courage to have a test done (has it ever happened to you that the word “negative” is the most awesome thing?) and I learned so much on how uninformed I was about HIV and what the treatment makes possible, and that the social stigma surrounding it is so baffling. I also had my first one-night stand and it was consensual, and glorious, and I feel entirely happy about it.
The problem is that my roommates started making “jokes” about how I met him (going home from a party) and what he works as (a “common” smith), and at first I would laugh about it as well but after a while I realized that they meant it and were actually slut-shaming and classicist. They were slut shaming me!
And it hurt a lot, because for the first time in two years I had felt so good about myself and not dirty, and I never thought about the rape while having sex with my one-night stand (which I did in the relationship I was in while I had been raped). I want to tell them how much it affects me but I don´t know how to. I´ve also come to realize that they are in general prone to slut-shaming, exemplified by one friend who likes to have a lot of casual sex of which my roommate would say she “tarnishes the image of the company”. I try to explain that having consensual sex is never bad and that it has nothing to do with work, and I like to think that maybe I got through even a little bit =)
Thanks for listening!

Hi, amadangelandme!

Super glad on your behalf that the tests came back negative. I can imagine the stress and terror from not knowing if you’re infected with a life altering disease, and the fact that you had to worry about that on top of the trauma from the event itself…

…all the hugs.

Also, condolences on your room-mates being willfully asinine with the classism and shamingness. That’s got to be super frustrating and hurtful. From the sounds of it, you’ve been dealing pretty well and trying to get through to them.

Maybe just lay it out short and simple?

“Hey, could you please quit with saying [slut shame-y thing]? You saying that kind of thing is painful for me to listen to and it hurts to know a friend of mine thinks less of me, which is what such statements as [their slut shame-y joke] imply, for doing something that helped my mental state.”

I’ve never really been in the relationship/sex boat, though, so take it with a grain of salt. The only conversation I ever had to use the above type structure on was… um… something a bit different. Kind of a ‘nope to relationships!’ boat, thing, really.

I cried and screamed earlier. I really…I cried and screamed and just wanted it all to stop. I know people here will understand that.

I did scream very loudly. My voice might even have been thought nice, but really it was screaming. And there was crying for ages. I just couldn’t stop.

I’m crying again

@gilshalos

May I offer you a internet hug and/or cute fuzzy thing (pulls up barrel of kittens and other assorted cute fuzzy things). Anyone else who needs a hug is welcome to one as well.

Hi Lamb

Might I make this suggestion; at an appropriate time come clean with the most understanding of your female friends; maybe the one who regards you as a brother. Explain, as you have done here that you once held views but you now recognise those views were wrong. You can explain that they were as a result of ignorance and that your new friends have helped you realise how wrong those views were.

I don’t know what’s going on inside your head; there’s no way I can. It seems unlikely though that you can secretly hate people who you get on with so well now. Perhaps it’s just confusion or some projection based on your feelings about yourself? or maybe it’s a defence mechanism. You feel that if you’re ‘rumbled’ your new friends will reject you so you’re jumping before you’re pushed as it were.

If you come clean there’ll be no reason to fear that. Your friends may be shocked at first but I suspect that once you explain they will understand. They may even be flattered that
they’re the ones who showed you the error of your ways by demonstrating that there’s no reason to hate women.

Give it a go; I’m sure you’ll feel much better when you don’t have to keep all this concealed for fear of being found out.

@ Lamb

Disgust isn’t something I ever feel; for various reasons I’m pretty de-sensitised. It may be that some people will find your previous output disgusting, *some* people may project that disgust onto you. However there will be people who can accept that that was the old you and you’ve changed, or are at least trying to change.

The fact that you come clean when you didn’t have to will help reinforce the argument that you genuinely have reformed.

History is full of examples of people who learn the error of their ways. Religious folks could no doubt give some sermon about the prodigal son or that bit about god being happier about one reformed sinner than 99 goodie goodies. I’m not religious myself but I think those stories reflect a general human condition that people do believe in redemption.

You can recant and repent. Test the waters with that friend. Hopefully she’ll understand; if she doesn’t you’ll have to accept that but it’s better than (a) living a lie or (b) cutting yourself off from human company forever.

Some people may well give you stick about your previous life but I think you may be surprised how forgiving people can be if you genuinely aren’t that person any more.

Glad you feel better, Gilshalos!

Lamb, you can always at least start coming clean. People can’t forgive unless they’re given an option to, and at the very least you wouldn’t be digging more holes for yourself.

Ultimately, it’s up to you.

@Lamb,

Coming clean to your friends is probably the best course of action. As Alan said, people who know you can be surprisingly forgiving if you’ve really changed and they believe that you have. It’s certainly better than continuing to lie about your past, have the guilt about it eat at you inside, and lose touch with people whom you genuinely do care about, one of whom you’ve apparently helped quite a lot, and who have influenced you for the better. I’d also suggest continuing to get help for your other issues too and trying to examine more thoroughly why you felt the need to lash out about women online like that. If you can understand it, it might help you move past it.

I’m kinda being mad here. I’d like there to be someone meatside to be mad with. I am not screaming anymore. I just can’t focus much. Though I am watching Doctor Who the reprise with the 9th doctctor

@ amadangelandme

I think you should feel very proud of yourself that you were able to reclaim your sexuality and take that power back for yourself. It’s possible your friends wouldn’t be saying the things they are if they knew exactly what this accomplishment meant to you, but it still doesn’t excuse their shittiness.

I don’ really have great advice, but sometimes you have to cut people out of your life if they are causing you harm. Friends should want to build you up, not tear you down.

I had a friend that did something similar. I hadn’t dated in two years and met someone at a club (although I didn’t go home with him, partially because I didn’t want to be “one of those girls”) and we started seeing each other. But, my friend purposefully insulted him in front of other mutual friends by referring to him as “Pedro” because apparently he looked slightly hispanic to her (even though his mother was white and his father was black). I told her to stop a bunch of times and she continued and it really just drove home that this pattern of behaviour was actually not uncommon for her so I cut her out of my life and have never regretted it.

https://www.facebook.com/StoriesOfSolitude/photos/a.10151331214320308.1073741825.9892790307/10152175551955308/?type=1

*eyes the state with the main cause of death as ferrets. Eyes David Eyes the state again* 😛